Act I: Chapter 1
~Show Me Your Move~
Rainbow Dash shifted in her seat, the uncomfortable wood chair squeaking as she did so. It was the year 2286, for Luna’s sake—you’d think wood would be outmoded by better materials by now. But Equestria Prime was a big place, and some areas were poorer than others. Red Canyon (and all the shantytowns that dotted its wrecked, dry landscape) was one such area.
The dingy bar all around Rainbow Dash screamed of how difficult it was for Red Canyon natives to make ends meet. Poor lighting bathed the place in a distracting and unfriendly glow. Cheap cigarette smoke choked the air around her. Ponies and Donkeys and Griffons and Diamond Dogs and Buffalo, all under one roof, their only goal to gamble and drink to escape the harrowing Red Canyon lifestyle, becoming distorted shadows under the light and behind the cigarette smoke.
But it wasn’t the bar that Rainbow Dash was here for. It wasn’t the shantytown she was here for. It wasn’t the lighting, or the smoke, or the distorted shadows. Not even the admittedly passable beer.
Rainbow Dash was here for Leeroy Brown.
Wherever he goes, he’s the baddest stallion in the whole damn town. Keeps a .32 gun in his pocket for fun, got a razor in his shoe. Badder than old King Kong, meaner than a junkyard dog. She’d heard it all when it came to Leeroy Brown.
But looking at him now from her seat across the poker table put him in a different light. Maybe that’s what caught most ponies off-guard about Leeroy Brown. He was a gambler—and a rather successful one, as his fancy clothes and diamond rings suggested. They accented his youthful, handsome features rather well, the diamond rings shimmering as they crowned his horn. His pretty shell hid a hideous creature underneath, and it was the creature that was Leeroy Brown Rainbow Dash intended to capture.
The bar’s jukebox blared a jaunty tune as the dealer fed the two remaining players their cards. “I’ve never played against a mare like you,” said Leeroy. “Blackjack and Full House was good players—real good—and you smoked ’em like they weren’t nothin’.” He cocked his head at his fellows, who were busy at the bar nursing damaged egos with their mutual friend alcohol. “You’re pretty good at this, sister. How long ya been playing?”
“First time,” Rainbow Dash grinned.
Leeroy stifled a laugh. “No way!” he said. “Nopony’s this good their first time.”
“They are if they’re lucky,” she returned. Her magenta eyes didn’t even look at her cards, still locked on Leeroy Brown, reading his every muscle movement. She put her cards on the table facedown, leaned back in her chair, and smiled.
She traced each of her facedown cards with her cyan hoof. “Tell you what, Leeroy Brown. I bet I’m the luckiest mare alive.”
His smile doubled. If she were any other mare, a mare who didn’t know Leeroy Brown or what he was capable of, she might have melted. It was a very fetching smile, but Rainbow Dash knew Leeroy Brown—what he was capable of—what he was already wanted for.
“I agree,” he said, his rich voice like honey. He moved a dull-orange hoof across the table and placed it on hers. Rainbow Dash fought the urge to grab it and twist his foreleg off.
“Not like that, smart aleck,” she said with the most charming grin she could muster. “I bet my hand of cards is better than the one you have right now.”
Leeroy threw his head back and scoffed. “A hand’a cards you ain’t even looked at?” he asked. “OK. It’s a bet. If I win, I’ll take you someplace nice.” His eyes and his smile became dreamier. “Someplace nice and quiet.”
“Sounds tempting,” said Rainbow Dash in a husky tone, leaning forward on the table. The milky light above began to flicker. The only colors either poker player could see was the namesake spectrum of Rainbow Dash’s mane and the diamond rings on Leeroy's horn. He couldn’t see her magenta eyes very well under this light, but he did catch a smirk. “But if I win… I’m taking you home.”
The look on Leeroy’s face said it all. His dreamy eyes could already see the dirty things he wanted to do to her. Rainbow Dash kept eye contact. Kept her smirk. Gotta appear nonchalant. Confident. Gotta win this creep over. Keep it going.
“I’ll take that bet,” Leeroy said. He put down his hand. Two kings, two queens, and a three of clubs.
Rainbow Dash flipped over her cards.
Royal flush.
Leeroy gasped in shock. Her smile widened as he looked from his cards to hers, then to her eyes. “How…?!”
“Like I said,” Rainbow Dash chuckled as she leaned back in her chair, “you can be this good if you’re lucky enough.” For a few seconds, there was only the dim chatter of other patrons and the jaunty song from the jukebox. Finally, Leeroy Brown grinned and lowered his head in defeat.
“You win,” he said. “You really are the luckiest mare alive.”
Rainbow Dash felt the two knobs on her back twitch under the leather of her jacket. She tried not to let it show. It was like puppy dog tails wagging at a compliment.
She fastened her saddlebags as Leeroy got out of his seat and held out a hoof to his apparent date for the night. She took it and allowed him to lead her out of the bar, chased out by raunchy catcalls in congratulations to Leeroy’s “score”.
The dark outside was pierced only by Luna’s moon, shining at least enough light to see. The two exited the bar into the sleepy shantytown where the drinkers’ wives slept as their husbands gambled away their pay. It looked to be built with raw materials that hadn’t seen any use in centuries, a small town carved entirely out of a trash heap, surrounded by rock and dust.
Rainbow Dash looked from the town to Leeroy.
“Say, Leeroy,” she said as they walked along. “What’s a guy as fancy-dressed as you doing in a dead-end town like this one, anyway?”
Leeroy smiled. “I’m a traveler, babe. I get my kicks by watching the miles behind me pile up.”
Not the only way you get your kicks, Rainbow Dash thought. “A fellow traveler, huh?” she smiled, patting her saddlebags. She drew special attention to the number of stickers on their sides, each one naming off a city she’d already been to. “Seeing the world before you get too old. I can respect that.”
He put a foreleg around her as they both looked up to the moon. Rainbow Dash fought a shiver. “I’ve seen quite a bit of the world already,” he said. “Mute City, Big Blue, White Aeropolis…”
Rainbow Dash grinned. “Really? I’m from White Aeropolis,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Born and raised.”
Leeroy looked behind her and returned her with a smirk. “Now I know you’re lying,” he said. “White Aeropolis population is almost universally pegasus. You ain’t even got wings, darlin’.”
Rainbow Dash attempted to flutter a set of wings that were no longer there, the knobs on her back twitching, causing her jacket to wiggle on her back. “Sure am,” she said. “It’s just…” Her smile faded as she looked away sadly.
Leeroy looked at her in startled shock. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry.”
She looked back to him, again sadly, before turning around and walking away a little. Had to make herself look as vulnerable as possible. “Don’t be,” she said. “It’s not like it’s your fault.”
She felt his hooves on her shoulders, rubbing them tenderly. Okay, she thought to herself, he’s going for the kill. Act like you want it, girl.
A set of teeth gently chewed her ear before breathing into it. “I know how you can forget it all for a little while,” he said in a deep whisper.
Rainbow Dash turned around, taking Leeroy's hoof and inching nearer to his face. She felt his hot breath mix with hers as he leaned in.
Then Rainbow Dash gave him a fierce slug across his face, dropping him onto his back. She lunged for him, landing on his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Before he even understood what was going on, she punched him again.
“That’s for Sunny Day,” she growled.
Another punch. “For Flowershine.”
Another. “For Golden Harvest.”
One more. “For Razmatazz.”
She raised her hoof again. “And this one?” She brought it down for a wet, solid thump. “This one’s special delivery from Fleur Dis Lee.”
His once-handsome face had been punched into a swollen, bleeding mess. Rainbow Dash quickly searched him, pulling out the gun he kept in his pocket and throwing it aside. “You think you’re hot stuff, huh? You think you can just have any mare you want, keep adding notches to your belt with no consequences.”
She dragged him back up and roughly forced him face-first against a nearby cement wall. She took his forelegs and twisted them behind his back, earning a gurgled cry. “Well what you forgot was that these mares had husbands. These mares had fathers and mothers. These mares had brothers and sisters and best friends and teachers.” Rainbow Dash leaned into his ear and lowered her voice to a hiss. “Wanna know what they all have in common?”
Leeroy whimpered. Rainbow Dash grinned at the sound. “They all want you dead, Leeroy Brown,” she growled through clenched teeth. She heard his urine splash the ground as he mumbled out something, likely a plea for his life.
She wanted to punch the back of his head as hard as she could. But no. She was having too much fun terrorizing him. That and, well, she needed him alive if she wanted the bounty money. “Oh no, no no no. No, no. I’m not gonna be the one to kill you. But you better start prayin’ the ponies paying me to bring you in are the merciful type.”
While she held his forelegs with one hoof, she raised her free foreleg and elbowed the back of his neck, causing him to drop down. “You were smart to keep running,” she continued as she rolled him onto his back and brought out a set of shackles. “Especially smart to run this far into the boonies, just to hide. Just so you can strike again when you get that itch.”
The shackles she brought out found their way onto each leg, clamping them all together into a single awkward, unusable stump. She stood back up, getting a good look at Leeroy Brown’s damaged face. She hadn’t noticed it before, but she’d punched out an eye. It laid over there by the cement wall. She grimaced. “Whoa, didn’t think I hit you that hard,” she murmured quickly.
Leeroy opened his mouth—only now did Rainbow Dash realize she didn’t gag him first, and only now did she realize they were only a little ways away from the bar. “BLACKJACK!” he shouted. “FULL—”
The noise was stopped by a cyan hoof. But it was too late. She heard shouting from behind her, and without a moment’s breath, she put Leeroy on her back and booked it. A loud crack rang behind her, and the cement wall she rounded lost a little bit off its corner.
“Crud,” she muttered. “They’re packin’ heat!”
Interestingly, none of the gunshots that followed were laser weaponry. From the sounds of it, Blackjack and Full House were using an old-fashioned pistol. Probably the best weapons one could find this far out in Red Canyon. Another bullet ricocheted by, causing lights to come on in a few of the shanties.
Great. It wouldn’t do for ordinary citizens to get involved in this. Gotta take this someplace where nopony’d get hurt. Rainbow Dash darted down an alley, a graffiti’d fence on one side, a cliff's wall on the other. Her eyes scanned up the cliff. If only she still had wings, it’d be easy to just shoot up there and hide.
Instead, it looked as if she’d have to do this the hard way. At the end of the alley, past some trash cans and another shanty, was a pile of rocks that led into a path up the cliff. She took it, just as she heard another gunshot, a bullet biting into the rocks behind her.
As she made her way up, she heard a panicked cry. Her eyes widened as she heard someone call up to her. “Hey, lady!” The voice was raspy, like it was coming from years of smoking. “Come back here with Leeroy, or the night owl gets it!”
The demand stopped her in her tracks. She heard Leeroy on her back. “Better…” He coughed. “Better do as he says. Blackjack only warns once.”
“Shut up,” Rainbow Dash said as she turned around. “Just shut up.” She walked back down the path, the alley coming back into view. Blackjack, a tall and gangly unicorn with an oily beard, stood with his gun levitated before him. Its barrel dug into the head of a terrified earth pony, his only mistake likely just taking a peek outside at all the ruckus. Next to him was a rough-looking Buffalo—his dark fur thick and coarse, a scar travelling down the entire length of his face. Rainbow Dash didn’t know how she’d missed Full House’s scar before. She blamed the lighting.
“Let Leeroy go,” Full House demanded in a low, menacing voice. “Drop him and walk away, lady. Last chance.”
Rainbow Dash looked at their hostage. Average build, balding. Looked to be in his mid-thirties. He looked back at her with pleading eyes and trembling lips.
“I’m gonna make a bet,” she said slowly.
“I don’t think you understand,” Blackjack threatened. “We’re the ones with the advantage right now.”
“I heard you fire six shots outta that gun,” Rainbow Dash said, ignoring Blackjack and instead focusing more on the gunbelt around his middle. There was a holster for the gun, but nothing in the way of extra bullets…
She pursed her lips. “That’s an old model, made by unicorns for unicorns. Not like the modern, flashy light guns made for everypony to use. It only has six shots.” She grinned. “I’m gonna bet… the chamber is empty.”
The hostage whimpered as the barrel dug into his head harder. “You gonna gamble with somepony's life?” Blackjack asked.
“Show me your move,” Rainbow Dash dared.
With a thought, Blackjack commanded his gun to fire. The command went unheard with an empty click. The hostage jumped from the expected shot, only to find himself surprised that he was still alive, healthy, in his mid-thirties, and balding.
Rainbow Dash cocked her head in triumph.
Blackjack, frustrated by this turn of events, growled and raised his pistol up off the hostage and brought it down on his head, pistol-whipping him into unconsciousness. “BJ, watch out!” cried Full House.
But it was too late. Rainbow Dash had dropped Leeroy and darted for Blackjack, bashing him in the chest with a headbutt. He was knocked clear into the shanty’s wall with a loud crunch, splintering the entire wall.
Full House drew out a Bowie knife and went for a cut against Rainbow Dash’s neck. It soared through the night air, a ghostly shadow the shape of a demented grin—but it cut nothing. Rainbow Dash had ducked, punching one of Full House’s forelegs, dropping him. She jumped and wrapped her forelegs around his thick neck, causing him to panic and try bucking her off. Despite his size, Full House had a weak spot everyone else had—the back of his neck, specifically where it met the head. With one good elbow drop, Rainbow Dash laid Full House out flat.
Rainbow Dash turned around just as Blackjack started tossing debris at her with his telekinesis, the sharp chips of wood speeding past her like bullets. One sliced her face, while another dug into her shoulder. Blackjack lunged out from behind the hole in the wall, a sharp piece of glass between his teeth—and suddenly, the world around Rainbow Dash slowed to a crawl.
This was her chance. She’d gotten such chances before, but this one held an epic weight to it. It was do or die. One miss and Blackjack could stick that glass into her neck, killing her. It would make an ugly exit to an already ugly life.
But if she died, then this creep goes free. Free to strike again when he inevitably would get his itch. But not only that, if she died, Scootaloo would...
She assumed her offensive stance and raised a cyan hoof, feeling the muscles in her foreleg bend and bulge as the blood pumped through them.
“MEGATON…”
Just as Blackjack descended on her, that hoof shot straight forward, pulling Rainbow Dash’s body with it.
“PUHhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnn…”
Her eyes widened as Blackjack flew over her. His own widened when he noticed his quarry had moved too far and he’d overshot his jump. Her hoof connected with his hind leg, sending him into a bizarre spiral before crash-landing a few feet away.
Rainbow Dash looked at her hoof in disappointment. She sighed and shook her head. “I swear I’ll get it right one of these days,” she whispered to herself. She heard a groan nearby and looked up. She gasped a little when she noticed that Blackjack had landed on the ground face-first, causing the piece of glass he had to cut his mouth. Blood spilled onto the ground around him as he screamed in pain.
She hadn’t felt it when it stabbed her shoulder, but the dull pain that began to grow reminded her she was hurt. Rainbow Dash took out a small, metal first aid kit from her saddlebags. She looked from her own wound, then to Blackjack as he squirmed on the ground like a wounded wild animal.
Nonchalantly, Rainbow Dash walked over to him. Blackjack looked up at her as she neared, the panic in his eyes made apparent, his voice melting from a scream into a whimper.
“Chill out,” Rainbow Dash said dryly. “I’m no doctor but I’ll do my best. Let’s start with some anesthetic.”
With that, she belted Blackjack across the head with her first-aid kit.
The tarp was flung from the Blue Falcon with nothing less than flamboyant gusto. As the beige cloth fluttered to the dusty earth, the moonlight stroked the Blue Falcon’s beautiful ultramarine chassis like someone who hadn’t seen her lover for ages. Truth be told, Rainbow Dash hadn’t taken the Falcon out for a spin under the spell of Luna’s night for months. She made a mental note to change that as soon as possible.
The Blue Falcon itself (Well, himself—Rainbow Dash insisted on assigning him a gender) was a breath-taking machine. His avian shape complimented the daring color scheme, the green cockpit a single large eye on a deep blue helmet. When Rainbow Dash had seen him for the first time after he was built, she’d fallen in love hard and never looked back.
The Blue Falcon’s single green eye opened with a quiet hiss, revealing a cockpit underneath. Leeroy Brown awoke as he found himself unceremoniously dumped into the backseat. Rainbow Dash re-checked her work: gag in place, shackles tightened, bandage clumsily applied over his missing eye… everything was in place.
She leaned in close. “You zonked out back there, Leeroy. I guess I dropped you on your head or something. I left your friends with the local sheriff’s office, gift-wrapped and everything. They’re not involved with this, as far as I’m concerned—lucky them.” She grabbed him by his neck and pulled in closer, her teeth bared. “But any more surprises like this, and I’ll just forget that reward money and gut you myself.”
After leaving her threat dangling in the air for a moment, she took the cockpit and started up the Blue Falcon. Every time she heard her beast of a machine scream to life, the cockpit rumbling with passion, Rainbow Dash found a smile on her face. She’d had her love affairs, but it was always the Blue Falcon who reminded her how much fun it is to just be alive. She took a deep, satisfied breath of that feeling of life, and then put her hooves into the control boots at either side of the main panel. Pressing down and forward sent the Blue Falcon screaming ahead.
They shot from the small alley and out of the shantytown, the late night dust of Red Canyon trailing behind them. Just as the Falcon was a fair enough distance away from the dilapidated village, Rainbow Dash pressed a button on the dashboard. A small green light began to blink. After a minute or two, the green light stopped and the intercom began to crackle.
“...Captain?” yawned a young voice.
Rainbow Dash grabbed the squawkbox while keeping one hoof in a control boot. “Captain’s here, Scoots,” she said as she brought it to her mouth. “Mission successful. Sorry to wake you up, by the way.”
“Whatever,” Scoots groaned back.
“Don’t talk that way to me! Bring the Falcon Flyer in—this birdie’s coming home to roost.”
Almost at her command, Leeroy heard a sound above. It was loud. Deafening. Like a long scream that was slowed way down. He looked up, the green-tinted windshield of the Blue Falcon giving them a good view of the Falcon Flyer as it soared above them.
If the Blue Falcon was a majestic driving machine, then the Falcon Flyer was a regal beast of a cargo ship. Designed specifically to look twenty percent cooler than your average ship, the Falcon Flyer boasted a similar appearance and color scheme to the Blue Falcon, only bigger and more imposing. The two machines were practically mother and son: the blueprints of the first were taken into consideration in the design of the second.
A tractor beam fell onto the Blue Falcon and raised it up into the Falcon Flyer’s cargo bay, bathing everything in a heavenly white glow. It would have been an awe-inducing sight if Leeroy Brown had any appreciation for what Rainbow Dash considered cool. The mother had collected her child.
She despised having to do it, but Rainbow Dash killed the Blue Falcon’s power, putting him into a deep sleep. She turned her head back to Leeroy and smiled sinisterly as the cockpit’s windshield opened. “Welcome home, honey.”
Leeroy whimpered behind his gag.